


Forging Ethics

by misura



Category: Fly By Night Series - Frances Hardinge
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Mosca Mye came to be an apprentice Forger of her own volition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forging Ethics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aja/gifts).



> this is ... not a fusion with _Inception_. it's not quite a crossover, either.
> 
> what it is, is uh something in between that just sort of happened as I was thinking about what a fusion or crossover between these two fandoms would be like?
> 
> meant to be a treat, but then it went over the word limit.

Damned, Mosca thought. Clent was damned, and if she weren't careful, the Beloved might decide she was just as guilty as he was. By association.

If she ran now (with Saracen, of course), she might get away with her soul only a little bit smudged. If she was good, they'd probably let her get off with a warning not do it again. If she told the right people all about Clent, they might even reward her, for putting a stop to this kind of wickedness.

"You told me you was just going to _talk_ to him." Mosca would have been fine with just talking. Clent talked very well - too much, often, and he tended to use big words when most people were really much more comfortable with small ones, simple ones that they used themselves all the time.

Mosca suspected Clent knew that. He wasn't _stupid_. (Well, sometimes, a little.) But words were funny things; they wanted to get out. If you knew them, they made you want to use them.

There were many moments in a day when Mosca had to bite on her tongue, only to keep the words inside.

Clent, she suspected, lived his life without _ever_ biting on his tongue.

"And so I did, did I not?" Clent gestured, like an actor on a stage, about to launch into his big monologue.

"In his dreams. You never said nothing about talking to him in his dreams. And looking all different."

Dreams were dangerous things. Everybody knew that. They were almost as dangerous as words, and a lot harder to control. It was why the Dreamcatchers had come to power: because they claimed they were able to control people's dreams, and for a while, people had thought that would be a very good thing, to have someone there who could keep you from dreaming anything dangerous.

"Why," Clent said, "it is merely a matter of appearances."

"You was acting like you were his daughter," Mosca said accusingly. "I heard you, Mr Clent. And I may be all right with - with _stealing_ and _lying_ and all of that - " (Clent's face took on an expression of someone who had never even _heard_ of such things, let alone consider doing them himself) " - but you can't go about pretending you was someone else."

"To have my utter veracity impugned at this early hour!" Clent sighed tragically. "Acting like his daughter, she says."

"You did!" Mosca insisted. "You looked - "

"Looks," Clent said airily. "Have we not all of us occasionally seen merit in taking on the guise of some aspect outside of our province? Not I, for what guise could suit me better than that of Eponymous Clent, gentleman extraordinaire? But others, being, alas, less fortunate - why, we need not even look beyond this room to find an example of such a person."

Given the size of the room in question, it was not hard to decide who Clent was referring to. "Me? I never - "

"Could this be the countenance of a criminal? A youthful thief, having fled the scene of her most heinous crime, attempting to delay pursuit by setting fire to the very livelihood of those charitable souls who had so kindly taken her in? No, I do declare. These honest, open eyes, belong to such a dangerous, vicious individual? Impossible!"

Mosca squirmed in her seat. "That's different. I never said I was someone else."

"Did I?"

"Well, no, but - "

"And if anyone were to ask you if you were this despicable criminal? You would confess forthwith?"

"Of course not." Mosca reconsidered. "Well, not unless they had _proof_. Or maybe if they had someone who knew me with them. I mean, if my uncle was standing right there, there wouldn't be much point to lying, would there?"

"Hm." Clent looked thoughtful. "In my experience, there are very few situations where some liberties taken with the truth would not have led to a great improvement of circumstances for all involved. This is, naturally, merely an opinion. You may wish to discover this fact for yourself, although simply taking my word for it may save you a considerable amount of discomfort and inconvenience."

"But I still wouldn't say I was someone I wasn't," Mosca said stubbornly. "That's _wrong_."

"Ah. _Names_."

"Well?"

"Well. Being, as I were, the only person whom he could possibly be addressing, it seemed a mere courtesy to respond. An unkinder, less magnanimous soul might have taken offense at a so clearly feminine nomenclature but I am, as you know, soft-hearted in the extreme."

Mosca turned the statement around in her head, studying it from a variety of angles. "It's still lying."

"Of course," Clent said.

"And dishonest."

"Clearly."

"And I don't like it one bit."

"Ah."

"But I guess the Beloved aren't going to mind if it's just other people mistaking you for someone else and you not setting them straight right away." That didn't _sound_ like something really wicked to do, anyway. And even if Clent didn't do it out of kindness, even if he actually did it on purpose, then it was still - "I mean, he could have asked, and you'd have told him."

Clent's face took on the expression it always did when he thought he was getting away with something. "Assuredly."

"So." He'd have hemmed and hawed, Mosca thought. He'd have tried to wriggle out of answering the question.

"So." Clent would never be able to fool _her_ , dream or no dream. Maybe there weren't any Dreamcatchers anymore, who'd come wake you up in the middle of the night because you were dreaming bad dreams, but that didn't mean dreaming was _safe_. Every child knew it wasn't.

"So I think you should teach me how to do that sort of thing." _If it's something anyone can learn,_ she almost added, but didn't. If she did, he'd say right away that it was, in fact, something you either were able to do or weren't. "So I can help next time, instead of just stand around doing nothing."

"Hardly nothing, I'd say," Clent muttered.

"Maybe I can figure it out on my own."

Clent grimaced. "Extremely doubtful, although indubitably you would prove quite able to position yourself in the way of personal catastrophe, and if such a thing were to happen in my general vicinity - well, people _will_ talk. Strangers always seem to arouse such unfair suspicions, born out of nothing but prejudice."

"Right you are, Mr Clent."


End file.
